Why Proportional Representation?

Proportional representation is a new way of voting – one that works for you.

For over 70 years, our voting system has worked for insiders and those who know how to use the system the best: those who have been in power the most. It isn’t fair that a government that gets 40% of the votes should get 100% of the power. The way to make voting more fair for everyone in BC is to give people a new way to vote – and that’s pro rep.

With pro rep, a party that gets 30% of the votes gets 30% of the seats in the Legislature. What BC votes for is what you get. It’s that simple.

Pro Rep Options

All three made-in-BC pro rep options would strengthen our democracy and put people first. The outcome of every option is the same: the proportion of seats a party gets equals the proportion of the vote a party receives in an election, all across the province.

1

Dual Member

In this system, voters would elect two MLAs in most ridings.

Adjacent riding would be combined so that each riding would have two MLAs, with a few rural ridings continuing to have one MLA, as they do now.

Voters would elect a candidate from the party that gets the most overall votes in each riding and would elect a second candidate based on each party’s provincial vote share and the candidates’ local support, to ensure that a party’s number of seats closely reflects their share of the overall vote.

Rural Urban

In this system, voters in more urban areas would elect two or more MLAs in multimember ridings, while more rural voters would elect over half of their MLAs from local single-member ridings (as we do now) with the remainder elected from among regional candidates.

Voters in urban areas would rank their top choices in order of preference, and the top-ranked candidates would be elected.

Voters in rural areas would elect local MLAs as well as regional MLAs, in order to ensure that a party’s number of seats in each region closely reflects their share of the overall vote in the region.

How does the referendum work?

This fall’s referendum gives us the chance to vote for a better way of electing governments. In the first question, people will get to choose whether they want to replace the status quo with proportional representation. Voters can vote on the first question only, to choose pro rep – and that’s it. If voters want to help choose the kind of pro rep they want, they can vote for that, too. Voters will have a chance to affirm their choice after two elections. No jurisdiction that has moved to proportional representation has gone back to first-past-the-post.